Purple Cochoa

The purple cochoa is a brightly coloured bird of the temperate forests of Asia, found in dark forested areas and in the canopy, where it often sits motionless. It appears dark in the shade of the forest and its colours are clear only in sunlight: the crown is silvery blue with a black mask over the eye, a grey carpal patch sits at the base of the black wing feathers with a prominent wing patch, and the tail is silvery blue with a black terminal band. It is found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam, in India along the Himalaya with its western limit about 100 km west of Mussoorie (Wikipedia, general species account).

The breeding season is May to July, when it builds a cup-shaped nest in a fork covered with moss, lichens and a white thread-like fungus said to be distinctive. Three pale sea-green eggs with blotchy markings are laid and both sexes take turns incubating. The birds are shy at the nest and slip away even when disturbance is far off. The song is a low whistle, with calls of sit and soft trrrs, and it feeds on berries, insects and molluscs. SoIB 2023 rates it a Moderate conservation priority, a resident and local migrant forest bird and omnivore with a Restricted range of about 8,510 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).